Red Hairing

I love red hair. Period. Despite what the title might suggest, there will be no distractions to mislead you to any other conclusions. I made the fall I am wearing in the above photo a week ago. Although the materials sat lonely on my basement table for a couple weeks before I paid them any attention, I now never want to put her down! I think I’ll call her Maraschino (pronounced the Italian way, marr-uh-skee-noh, of course) for completely obvious reasons.

Perhaps the fact that less than 3% of the world has natural red hair makes it more appealing to me, but the shades that don’t grow naturally from human follicles are what I live for. Don’t get me wrong, the fiery manes of Ireland and Scotland are beautiful and I certainly wouldn’t kick a wig like that out of my bag. But, when I am in hair town surrounded by racks upon racks of variously hued crimson tresses, I reach for the unnatural every time.

I have dyed my own natural hair every color of the rainbow. My ventures into the world of reds required a bit of lightening and sometimes additional pigmentation. If I used Sun-In (remember that product from the 1990’s) a few times during the summer my hair became a dazzling copper. Soaking my hair in peroxide gave me a mellow chestnut brown with auburn highlights. One day I made a magical discovery. I mixed a packet of cherry Kool-Aid into my peroxide soak and EUREKA! It was awesome! I couldn’t tell you how I thought that concoction up, but it worked so well I repeated it again and again. I probably wouldn’t do it now, because there are much harsher chemicals available at hair town that work much better, but for a bored teenager in a small town it was perfect.